The invention relates to a method of gasification of a finely divided combustible material under pressure for production of a useable commercial gas in a single step.
A gasification apparatus for a gasification under pressure is known including a gasification reactor, a quenching pipe for crude gas issuing from the gasification reactor and a convection-heated boiler with convection heating surface elements for receiving the heat from the crude gas.
Finely divided combustible material means fine grained to dust-like combustible material. Particularly this material can be a fuel such as coal. The energy is supplied to the gasification reactor by burner, which also entrains predominantly the finely divided combustible material. The gasification reaction is controlled in regard to thermodynamic considerations so that a commercially useful gas of a predetermined composition is produced. Reactions are frozen, so to speak, in the quenching pipe by chilling. Furthermore a quenching gas is admitted to the quenching pipe. The expression "gas" also mean "vapor" in the scope of the present invention. The walls of the gasification reactor, of the convection-heated boiler and of other components for the purpose of high-temperature cooling, e.g. a boiling water cooling, are provided with pipe walls made from welded parallel pipes or with pipes in a gasification apparatus of the above-described type. The convection-heated boiler is provided with convection heated surface elements. This is also true in the apparatus according to the invention. It is understood that the heat received by the pipe walls and in the convection-heated boiler is utilized.
In the known gasification method, on which the invention is based and which is described in European Patent Document 0 115 094, the tower-like gasification apparatus has two towers, which stand next to each other. That is an expensive construct method. On the other hand, it is often done to guarantee that no interference in operation is caused by deposited cinder and/or ash particles during the gasification. Nevertheless the operational reliability often must take troublesome strand formation into the bargain, i.e. strand formation cannot be avoided and must be considered.